This invention relates to cooler chests for keeping food and other items cool while being stored and carried before they are consumed. In particular, it relates to a means for keeping dry foods separate from the ice-water which collects at the bottom in a cooler chest, while utilizing the ice water to cool sealed beverages and other sealed containers.
Cooler chests currently do not have a convenient means for separating dry and unsealed food items from sealed containerized foods such as beverages. Sandwiches and cake, for instance, often get wet from melted ice in cooler chests and from condensation of water on pre-cooled cans of beverages. This is a common hazard of using cooler chests for picnicking and carrying food while traveling in vehicles.
Prior-art partitioning of cooler chests have included such devices as described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,663,157 granted to R. C. Laramy on Dec. 22, 1953. The Laramy device provided a storage space for ice and water but not beverages or containerized foods beneath a platform on a floor of a cooler chest. U.S. Pat. No. 4,424,687 granted to Marshall M. Morgan on Jan. 10, 1984 described a rack or platform standing above the bottom of an ice chest but did not provide a means for accessing containerized food in water and ice stored beneath the platform without removing the platform and food stored above it. U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,475 was for a completely different type cooler chest with a drawer-type beverage container below a top section for other food items. U.S. Pat. No. 3,106,074 taught a cooler chest with a door to a bottom section. U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,243 provided for rotating beverage cans in ice for a quick-chill effect. U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,904 described an inclined plane with a trap door at the bottom for removing cylindrical beverage containers from a specially constructed cooler chest. U.S. Pat. No. 4,916,923 employed a device for separating upstanding beverage containers at opposite walls of a cooler chest to provide storage space in water and ice between them.
Contrary to the aforementioned prior art, the present invention provides a grid for separating dry food from ice-water cooled items in a cooler chest that also allows easy access to the ice-water cooled items by doors or other means. The present invention may be installed as part of a cooler chest during manufacture or as an after-market modification.